Bentley Continental GT3 is ready to rumble

Aristotelis Vasiliakos from Kunos staff wrote an entry in Assetto Corsa forums warming up the atmosphere before ACC second stage release. Here it is.

The 2016 Bentley Continental GT3 car is… a tricky beast to say the least. The car is heavily based on the street version and this translates in certain aspects of its handling characteristics.

Although the big V8 twin turbo engine is placed behind the front wheels, the car still has more front weight bias. This, together with a higher center of gravity than other GT3 cars, makes the car more prone to roll during turns and results in more weight shifting. On the other hand, the Blancpain Balance of Performance (BoP) permits bigger front tyres for FR cars and those do help the Bentley to have a surprisingly good turn in.
The front weight bias provokes a moderate understeer in mid turn, but it is easily manageable by pressing a bit more on the accelerator and letting the big engine rotate the rear end and point the nose towards the exit of the turn.

Speaking of which, the 4.0-liter V8 twin turbo engine is obviously heavily restricted, but the BOP permits higher torque and power outputs for cars with significant frontal area and thus high drag. As a result, the engine delivers more than 650Nm of torque for a very wide range of revs and around 550bhp of maximum power.
This is both a blessing and a curse as they say. The massive amount of torque is putting under big stress the fat rear tyres and more often than not, manages to break traction, aided by the fact that the rear end is lighter than the front. The traction control does help a lot but it is very intrusive doing so. Lower TC levels are needed in order to get all the potential performance of the car, but it seems that its response is not linear and at lower levels the torque and power can be delivered very violently and can make the rear wheels spin a lot before intervening. When this happens, the very big body of the car can become quite a handful to control, showcasing a completely different aspect of its handling characteristics and becoming much more difficult to control.

The aerodynamics, as usual, play a big role in the performance of any GT3 car. The Bentley is big, there is no denying about it. The frontal area creates a lot of drag and this is only partly counterbalanced by the powerful engine. Certainly the car accelerates very fast out of the slow to medium speed turns, but at higher speeds it simply hits a wall. Not much that can be done about it.
The very long front splitter is another aspect that you must consider. Although it produces quite a big amount of downforce, it is very prone to touch the ground and especially the kerbs. The splitter is very strong to be able to sustain the downforce but on the other hand it means that when you hit a kerb with it, if it not breaks, it can make the front end jump and instantly lose all grip from the front end. Take into consideration this fact when setting the front ride height and the rake of the car. A compromise is needed to keep the splitter off the ground while still producing enough downforce. The very same compromise might introduce a moderate understeer at high speed turns, when the power isn’t enough to make the rear end aid the turning.

Finally, the high drag figures, certainly do not help much with fuel consumption, and the tyres might suffer from all the torque available. Nevertheless, with the proper TC and ABS levels, the car can easily achieve impressive laptimes, but in order to find out the extra hidden performance you need to lean less on the electronic systems and more on your driving skills.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a nice onboard video of a testing session. You can hear the rear end struggling for traction when the driver lowers the TC.